Does Your Culture Promote the Right Behaviors? (You May Be Surprised)

Be Mindful of the Workplace Culture You Create
Does your culture promote the right behaviors needed to achieve your strategy? Strategy doesn’t execute itself — it flows through the culture of your organization. How leaders define, shape, and reinforce culture is a critical factor in determining whether business and people strategies succeed or fail.

To get workplace culture right, leaders must:

1. Assess your current culture to understand where you stand.
2. Shape and align culture so it accelerates strategic progress rather than blocking it.

Defining Organizational Culture
We define organizational culture as the way work truly gets done. It is measured not by slogans or mission statements, but by observing how people think, behave, and make decisions. This includes both explicit and unspoken values that guide business practices — particularly in how leaders hire, fire, and promote. Culture sets the tone for expected behaviors and drives the daily execution of your strategy.

Key question: Does your culture promote the right behaviors that actually help your organization succeed?

Culture’s Link to Performance
High performing organizations understand that culture is not incidental — it is a driver of success.

• Research from Harvard Business School shows that an effective culture can account for up to 50% of performance differences between organizations in the same industry.
• Our organizational alignment research found that cultural factors explain 40% of the gap between high- and low-performing companies across revenue growth, profitability, leadership effectiveness, customer loyalty, and employee engagement.

Culture matters — a lot.

Is Your Culture Helping or Hindering?
Strong cultures can be enablers or liabilities.

• Enabling example: Southwest Airlines’ culture supports collaboration, trust, and strategic execution, helping the company outperform competitors consistently.
• Hindering example: The The Department of Veterans Affairs’ culture has undermined effectiveness and public trust, creating barriers to performance despite strategy.

As a leader, ask whether your culture helps or hinders your ability to:

• Execute business strategy.
• Attract, develop, engage, and retain the people critical to success.

A Win at All Costs Culture
Some cultures encourage success at any cost — a path that often leads to toxic behaviors. Consider the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal in Major League Baseball. Leadership reportedly created an environment where pushing boundaries to win was normalized. Fear, weak communication, and extreme focus on results shaped a culture in which “up was down” and ethical boundaries were ignored.

The consequences were serious: fines, draft pick penalties, and the firing of top leaders. Yet the underlying culture — prioritizing victory above integrity — remained largely intact, demonstrating that punishment alone cannot fix a toxic environment.

The Consequences of a Toxic Culture
A culture that rewards winning at any cost may temporarily align with strategy, but it is rarely sustainable or fulfilling. When incentives favor unethical behavior more than compliance or integrity, toxic patterns persist. Organizations that fail to confront these cultural dynamics risk long-term reputational damage, employee disengagement, and strategic failure.

The Bottom Line
Organizational culture often reflects the values of its founders and leaders. The most successful organizations deliberately shape culture to support behaviors that align with strategy. Ask yourself: Does your current culture promote the right behaviors that drive success — or is it inadvertently creating obstacles?

If your culture is not supporting your strategy, it’s time to take action. Aligning culture with business priorities is not optional — it’s essential.

To learn more about how to ensure that your culture reinforces the right behaviors, download The 3 Levels of Culture that Leaders Must Get Right